EU countries pledge to tax share trades by 2016

Group led by France and Germany agrees on outline of plan to tax financial transactions

By

Viktoria Dendrinou, The Wall Street Journal

May 6, 2014 Updated: 10:24 p.m. GMT

A group of European Union countries led by France and Germany pledged Tuesday to start taxing the trading of shares and some derivatives by 2016, amid strong opposition by countries that are worried about the tax's economic impact and its legal grounding.

The group supporting the financial transactions tax presented its latest political agreement to a meeting of finance ministers, saying the tax should be enforced step by step. It would start with a levy on shares and some derivatives-which haven't yet been specified-by...